A survey for “assassination attempt in a terrorist context” was opened by the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office on Thursday, January 20, after the stabbing of a Belgian national in Agadir, Morocco, on Saturday.
On Wednesday, the French anti-terrorism justice had opened an investigation for “assassination in connection with a terrorist enterprise” after the murder, on Saturday, of a French tourist, not far from Agadir, in southern Morocco.
The two cases were attributed by the Moroccan police to the same suspect, a 31-year-old man, arrested the same day in Agadir.
The Moroccan, French and Belgian justices work in close collaboration
“Faced with these two facts, the Moroccan judicial authorities have decided to open a case for terrorism”, said Thursday, the Belgian federal prosecutor’s office, which says it works in close collaboration with the French and Moroccan justices.
Moroccan investigators already suspected “a terrorist motive for the crime” concerning the murder of the French tourist, a 79-year-old woman stabbed to death in a market in Tiznit.
Regarding the attack on the Belgian national, also with a knife, the federal prosecutor’s office specifies that it took place “Saturday at the end of the day in Agadir”.
This 65-year-old woman, who is from the region of Mons, Belgium, and lives in Morocco, “severely injured” corn ” His days are not in danger “, reports the prosecution, in a press release, citing “local doctors”. The investigations were entrusted to the anti-terrorist section of the federal judicial police of Charleroi.
The kingdom has been spared in recent years from violence linked to jihadist groups. However, Morocco was the scene, at the end of 2018, of an attack against two Scandinavian tourists, beheaded in the name of the Islamic State (IS) organization in the High Atlas mountains (south).
The suspect of the two attacks perpetrated on Saturday a few tens of kilometers apart had stayed for a month this fall in a psychiatric hospital, according to the Moroccan police. He will be the subject of a new psychiatric expertise.